Nobody, not even the rain
by pondglorious
Summary: Immediate post-Hannibal arrest, the 5 stages of grief and numerous hospital visits.


**i. Denial**

There are no words for this.

Or, at least, Alana can't find them.

There are no words to describe the world being tilted on it's axis, overthrowing her with it, leaving her broken and bruised and bewildered with the blood rushing to her head. Everything that is true being not only flipped, but twisted and tangled and gnarled beyond recognition.

No words for this; Jack's cracking voice through the speaker of her phone. For the unrelenting gouts of blood Will lost to the polished floor of Hannibal's office. For what they found in his basement.

There are no words for the waiting room of the ICU and the compassionate, apologetic glances the mourners return in some sad, mutual insult. Alana digs her nails into the skin of her knees and grits her teeth and demands updates and answers from Jack; There are no words as she asks and asks and asks so many questions, asks the same ones over and over and comes up with new ones like his answers will change and everything will turn out to be a sick dream, a nightmare, because surely things like this only can exist in the most gruesome shadows of the unconscious mind.

There are no words because the only ones that come to her mind are these: This is not happening. Except it is.

It is all numbness, deafness, blindness. And time. Minutes go on like hours and hours go by like seconds, seconds become years and time is just an endless fleeting void of knowing and the unknown, when suddenly-

A revelation sends her fleeing and vomiting into a toilet. It was Jack's stricken face as he got off the phone, a sudden remembrance of a particular trait of the Copycat's and suddenly she knows. Bile and tears mingle and mix and reduce her down to a small, sick and sobbing child, lost in a crowd of confusion and doubt and horror and pain so numbing it's all just blanched torture.

The numbers on the clock melt away the early hours of the morning, but time is a meaningless abyss. Alana tries not to think about what the wordsgutted or cannibal mean. She prays his hospital bed won't become his coffin, she tries to rationalize her breathing as well as her thoughts, still spinning with a multitude of justifications and excuses.

And she waits. There's not much else she can do now.

When, eventually, the surgeon comes to talk to them, she hangs onto his words for dear life but she's listening from underwater, his words distant and muffled, lost in the tumbling waves of her thoughts. She only hears one thing: He will live. And they will allow her to see him.

So that's how Alana ends up walking towards his room, heels clacking against the tile floor, an echo in the close distance, tunnel vision blurring everything but the door that a now sewn-up and scarred Will Graham lies behind, and the world is reeling in excruciating slow motion.

She's done this for over a year now, placing a mask of professionalism and strength securely on her features, her posture, her words, whenever she had to look at Will through the cold metal bars of his cell. It should be automatic. But now, as she's walking towards the door of his hospital room, she's forgotten the lines of that facade. She has no idea how she's going to do it.

Luckily, the facade is for an audience of the unconscious. At the sight of him on the hospital bed, she feels everything in her collapsing, faltering in. Because the truth is, she hadn't truly believed it until now. Grief slams into her takes the air in her with it, and she lets herself drop to her knees with a strangled sob and clutches his limp hand in both of hers, and suddenly tears are coming so hot and thick she'll choke on them, or puke again, she can't be sure anymore. She buries her face in the surface of the scratchy thermal blanket covering him and leaves a kiss on his hand that is off-kilter and messy but hits some breath of skin somewhere by his fingers and leaves a spark and there is no sound except for Alana's muffled sobs of I'm sorry, I am so, so sorry, and the quiet hum of the machines that were tethering him to life.

* * *

Will awakes from the coma a few weeks later, and Alana is the first thing he sees. He asks her if it's over and salt is stinging in pinpricks at the back of her eyes before she can choke out a meek yes.

But that wasn't the truth. It was so, so far from over.

**ii. Anger**

Five minute visits were inconvenient, to say the least. Not enough time to properly engage, too much time for just general greetings and check-ins. Most days Alana doesn't even leave in the four hour intervals between visiting periods, instead wandering around the never ending corridors of the hospital, picking at her nails in the waiting room, or picking at food she won't eat in the cafeteria. She knows she has no obligation, but visiting is all she can do, and for now it has to be enough.

Alana hasn't taken a complete disliking to this routine; it's nice to be contained in this sterile place and forget about the gore outside, the press awaiting, the preparations for the trial, her phone and email bursting with journalists and reporters and all sorts of news people begging for an interview, a quote, anything.

So she trades four long hours for five fleeting minutes. And even those five minutes aren't exactly a cakewalk. Will clings to her, desperately and gnawingly, even though he disguises his neediness and pushes her away just as much. The space between them is practically bursting with everything they haven't said, everything they don't get to a chance to say. It's bursting to the point of breaking, and it almost does. As much as words can break them when there's only 300 seconds to do the damage.

Alana always starts with a question, usually one having to do with his well-being, partly because she really wants to know, partly because she wants to remind him that she- that someone- cares.

Today, she asks, "How much have you been sleeping?"

Will waves her off and refuses to meet her eyes. "I have no idea. It's easy to forget things like time when your world is a never ending labyrinth of white rooms and IVs and steel bars. Though occasionally the numbers on the clock on the wall are large enough to read through the drugs and the pain."

Her eyebrows knit together, concerned. "I can get a nurse, something to help with the pain."

"No need." He gestures rather violently for her to sit down, and when she has, he says, "Can I ask you something," and she can tell it's concealed as a question even though there's no mark at the end labeling it as such.

"Of course," she answers quickly, "Anything."

He hesitates, face strangled as if this contemplation was a cause for pain, and after a few moments he gets out, "Why do you stick around?"

Alana freezes like a deer in the headlights. "What?"

"I'm horrible to you. We both know it's true," Will begins quietly, and Alana feels guilty for knowing that it is. He is horrible to her. He yells and snaps at her, he shoves her away when he's weak and pulls her in again when he needs strength. He's moody and angry, sad and void of emotion, a brick wall. And still, she never blames him; she stands by his side and takes the beating when it comes, supports him and pushes him through a recovery that otherwise would have broken him to pieces rendered irreparable. Alana is all of his strength, and yet, he treats her like she is the weakness he's trying so hard to fight.

Alana wants to reach out for him, take his hand, put an arm around him, but her arms are pinned frozen to her sides. She wants tell him that it's okay to feel weak, that he doesn't need to feign strength, not for her. She's seen him at his worst, beaten to a pulp on the floor of a cell because of a man she considered a friend. A man she recomended for him. Alana's throat clenches, a pang stabs her gut.

"So why do you stay?" He says now, breaking her out of her thoughts. "It'd be best for you to get out while you can. Save yourself. It's just going to be worse when I'm out. I'm in no state for...whatever this is. Maybe I never will be. You'd be better off without me. Maybe…" he winces and swallows before continuing quietly, "Maybe you want to be without me."

Alana is completely floored. Bewildered. It takes her a few seconds to recover, just long enough for him not to notice. "How can you think that?" She asks faintly, eyes brimming with vulnerability, voice imbued with an aching need for him to understand. "I come here everyday, Will, every visiting hour, every session- I stopped my work, my life because I'm here, with you-"

"Then don't. You don't have to do that for me."

Alana stops and contemplates him for a beat, eyebrows knitting together and lip quivering. "I'll give you space, I'll go away...if that's- if that's what you want. But I don't think that's what this is about."

"You're right. It's not. It's me. Look at me. I'm just - I'm just dead weight...just dragging you down into the grave with me. I don't know why you still try, when everyone else can't even look me in the eyes-"

Alana can feel the rage she's tried so hard to keep contained seething up out of her skin to the point of boiling, and in the next second, she snaps. "Then how can you look at me?!" She screeches, and Will actually reels back as far as humanly possible with the restrictions of his tiny hospital bed, eyes wide. "Look where we are, Will. That's all because of me, and you know it. How could you look at me for a year, when you were on the wrong side of the bars and I actually thought you were capable of doing what he did? When you knew I was the one who brought you to him in the first place?" Will is shocked, recognition registering in his face, like he'd forgotten her role in all this (he had). Alana's still fuming. "And you know why I came there, why I still come here?" Will sits rigid and shocked, and the sight of adamant face only serves to spur on the explosion, and she's dizzy with the need to make him perceive her plight. "Because I want to! Because you deserved- you deserve more than that! And I don't, because I'm the one who did this to you. I ruined your life. I handed your mind over to a mass murderer and trusted him with you. You are here because of me, so why deny it anymore?"

Her words fall like a cleaver between them and for a long beat of silence Will takes her in, soaks up her words, contemplates his own. When he finally speaks, his voice is shaking slightly with an emotion she can't quite place. "That's not what I...I never thought of it that way. I never blamed you. You were caught in his web, inextricably...we all were. Me more than anyone else. And you...you were the only good thing I had through any of that. I'm not going to say I forgive you because you have nothing to be forgiven for. But one day…you're going to have to forgive yourself."

"What makes you think I'm interested in that?" She snaps, and she's scolding herself again, loathing her own lack of control. Her hot temper was on fire these days, and it was times like this when she thinks the flames are impossible to quench. She takes a deep breath and paces, slowly cooling herself down until she's reduced down to smoke and ashes.

But there is a part of her that wants this, wants to spurr him on, to tell him to keep screaming, to beat her up until she's as brusied and broken as she feels inside. Even if the reasoning for his harsh words are misplaced, she's worthy of the intention - to evoke reaction, and, almost unintentionally, to make her hurt. But the rational and clear side of her also knows that isn't what he needs. He doesn't need a fire; he has enough of his own. When she finally speaks again, her words feel just as dry and scalded as cinders.

"I'm sorry. Just understand that this isn't about you, this isn't for you, okay?" It's about him. It's about this place, it's about that place, about all the places in between that brought us to these places. And, more than anything...it's about me.

"But I just don't understand." Alana says, somehow managing to drag herself out of her own thoughts. It's sadness she feels now instead of anger, aching and scorching. "You always do this. Before, too, in Baltimore. I don't understand why you have to keep pushing me away."

Will can't quite find words and so, accepting that there's nothing and too much left to say, she goes.

* * *

There's something like surprise in Will's face when she returns the next day, and to her surprise, he says this: "I missed you. I miss you." He emphasizes the word, like he believes that missing her will always be a constant state of mind.

There's a blush and a smile in her voice. "I'm here now. And you saw me yesterday."

"Soon you'll be leaving again, and I'll have another four hours to dwell in the sorrow of your absence."

The flames in her heart don't burn it today; they melt it. Vice versa, she thinks.

**iii. Bargaining**

"Phyllis Crawford brought me books."

Will is marginally less cross today; Alana can hear it in the lull of his voice, harshness evaporated from it. He gestures over to his nightstand, smiling gently up at her, where a stack of worn paperbacks lie.

"Did she?" Says Alana, going to run her fingers over the tower of paper spines. "How thoughtful of her. I feel nostalgic," she jokes with a mirthful smirk, "Got any Flannery O'connor in there?"

"Actually, I think I could go for something a bit more light-hearted," Will admits.

"Of course." She flashes him a small smile, pondering the books with the tips of her fingers for a while before choosing one. Slipping a book from the middle of the pile, she sits down in her visitors chair. Without waiting for permission, she once smooths the cover over to the first page and opens her mouth to start.

Will eyes her. "I can read myself, you know."

"Shush. I want to read to you."

Will doesn't protest. He glances at the cover and just catches a flash of The Phantom Tollbooth before she begins: "There once was a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself- not just sometimes, but always."

She's halfway through the third page when she catches him staring at her in such a way she can sense he's not listening - not because he is disinterested, but because he's distracted by something else. Heat rushes to her cheeks, feeling like he's dissecting her, feeling so ridiculouslyadolescent, like she's a teenager with a crush whom she's been caught peeking at, not the other way around. "It's really hard to focus on the book when you're staring at me like that, you know," She says, instinctually looking down and away from his prying eyes. "What is it?"

Will is not disarmed. He continues to glare in his graceful way. He used to do that at Quantico, she remembers, when their relationship was still developing and delicate, and she would pretend not to notice. For just a second she allows her mind to wander into the what if's, and she wonders, had she broken her own vow of not being alone with him and of not being romantically involved with him, if she could have saved him sooner. But that's just fruitless bartering, and she can't afford to think about that now. And she isn't pretending anymore. After a moment she can place the nature of it: he's staring at her like - no matter how cliche it sounds- like she's the only thing in the universe.

"Nothing," Will's voice is languid and lavish. "I'm just really, really in love with you, is all."

Alana nearly drops the book on the floor. Abruptly she feels like she's going to break open - like the dam she's built to keep herself in neutral tones has a rift and she's going to flood with emotions, everything she's been holding in the past weeks, months, the past year suddenly could come pouring out all at once, everything lying open like the book in her lap. But somehow she manages to keep that all inside with a feeling like her chest is going to burst, and she lets out a hesistant and breathy, "Will..."

Will's voice comes in a panic then, and she nearly regrets saying anything at all. "Just...hear me out for a second, alright? I know we're not...dating or anything, not yet, not here...but we've been through more than most people have to go through their whole lives together, haven't we? I know we never got a real chance...but after everything, it's enough. For me, that's enough. Isn't that enough?"

Alana's heart swells and jumps into her throat when she realizes that he's asking if that's enough for him to love her. Tears spring into her eyes as she chokes out, "Yeah. It's enough. For me, too. I mean...I love you, too."

The truth of her own words begin to sink until they slam into her with enough force to knock her down, and Will's smiling at her like the most content man in the world despite that he's in a place to be about the least, and for just a second, everything feels good. The salt in her eyes finally spills and spreads in bitter rivulets down her cheeks.

"Alana..." Will says gently, reaching out a hand and brushing his knuckles down the side of her arm, "Why're you crying?"

"Nothing, nothing." Alana says quickly, whisking the tear tracks away with her sleeve. "I'm fine, just...God, if you weren't stuck in that hospital bed right now, I'd jump your bones."

"I suspect an actual date would be a good thing to try first," Will's saying now, baring a lopsided grin, "So...when I'm out, do you think...you'd want to go on a date? With me?"

Alana can't help but laugh at the complete absurdity their quandary, and still at the wonder of it all. "Yes, Will. I'd like that."

Suddenly a nurse pecks at the glass, signaling that time's up, causing them both to jump out of their blissfully real reverie.

As Alana's making her way down the corridor again, it really hits her. She loves Will and Will loves her and they still aren't actually together and she can't entirely fathom how that's possible. They hadn't even kissed in over a year. She's forgotten what the shape of his lips are like on hers. They were completely indefinable now and maybe it was wrong to love him when she'd only loved him consciously now and when he was on the wrong side of prison bars; when she had fallen in love with someone whose absence she believed was perpetual.

But is love really so much more miraculous than faith? The unwavering, unconditional faith she'd held for him all along, when the world was screaming for her to falter? Isn't believing in something- in someone - the most loving human capacity of all?

So yes, she knows she loves him. Nothing has ever made more sense.

The next day she sits on the edge of his hospital bed, and leans over and kisses him. It's unhurried and soft, and her hand is on the side of his face and his is on her hip and after a moment her she almost loses her balance and teeters over the edge of the bed, but he grips her waist and steadies her and they laugh together as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

* * *

Alana notices Will's lack of appetite and takes pity on him, remembering the meaning of more than a year living off meals provided by a jail and a hospital, and she smuggles food into his room frequently; sometimes from the cafeteria, sometimes not. He's been moved from the ICU and can actually take solid food now, but she doesn't bother asking the nurses on the off chance that they disapprove. Part of her thinks it hypocritical; she's in no place to be asserting anyone else about their eating habits, as she's had difficulty getting anything down since she had found out what she'd been unintentionally eating for years. But today she comes baring fast food, something she'd picked up on a whim on the way to the hospital, and seeing his eyes light up as she shoves the to-go bag into his hands makes her think it wasn't an entirely ridiculous decision. It was easy to assume that he, as well as her and Jack and most likely anyone who ever ate at Hannibal's table, had sworn off meat for good, so she's had to be particular about what she brings him. Just the smell of meat through a restaurant window makes her nauseous these days, and she couldn't imagine daring trigger the delving into those memories for him. The insinuations of where Abigail's ear had ended up still makes her cringe just thinking about it.

She perches on the edge of his bed and stares out the window, concealed by blinds. Through the cracks, she can see the blue of the sky, almost looking peaceful in the afternoon light, creating the illusion that the ground level is also dwelling in such serenity. But Alana knows better.

"It's a circus out there," Alana admits almost apologetically, "An absolute goddamn horror show. I'm afraid of what they'll do when they get their hands on you."

Will balls a napkin up in his fist, gives her a nonchalant shrug. "Can't be worse than anything they've already done."

"You'd be surprised," she argues, "There's still the people who think you did it. A myriad of the population still trying to peg you despite the overwhelming evidence. Meanwhile he is sitting on his prison bunk like it's a throne. Don't even get me started on his goddamn fan mail. I think I'll be sick."

Will pushes the now-empty cartons out of the way and leans back, still unmoved. "I knew there would be all that. It's inevitable." He lets out a deep sigh and she can already tell he's about say something profound. And he delivers. "I was vermin because I was a poor fisherman. He is a god because he wears three-piece suits and practices psychiatry. It's this - all of it, it's all part of his plan, his design, his stage directions...and they don't see it as a freak show, a horror show, it's an operatic event, and the adoring public is his audience and Lounds' headlines and his picture plastered on every paper is the playbill, and the courtroom will be his stage; we're his props. It all coalesces into his...sick facade, and he is the satire, and we haven't even reached the grand finale."

For a long stretch of silence she lets his words soak in. He's painted a perfect picture of the state of the public at the moment without having stepped foot in the chaos at all, and it hits her how long he's had to think about this, how long he's had to prepare. Eventually she exhales a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "I don't know...it all seems a bit too melodramatic for my tastes."

To her surprise, Will laughs, a dark, loud sound with just a hint of mockery laced in it. "Have you met Lecter?" They were both too conscious of not using Hannibal's name anymore. "The epitome of melodramatic?"

She laughs, too, though it isn't funny. But it feels good to laugh, even the humor is twisted. "They've taken a liking to us, though- the press," continues Alana, "All they can care about is my romantic involvement with either of you. It's disgusting, really."

Will's eyes lay fondy on her and he reaches his fingers out to brush them lightly over the skin of her arm, and her body shivers with the sensation. "How do you cope with it?" He asks gently.

Alana skirts her eyes downward, oddly feeling like he's peering straight through her. "I don't know. Most days seeing you is the only thing that keeps me sane."

Will's eyes darken. "I don't think I'm in any state to be responsible for anyone else's sanity."

"You'd be surprised," she repeats, and still doesn't look at him, instead out at the insultingly blue and jovial light of the window. She feels strangely at ease enough to make a wistful confession.

"I'd do anything, you know," she says quietly, an air of distance about her, "I'd trade anything...if I could go back, change things, make myself see...have him hurt me, instead of you..."

He doesn't let her finish; he snaps up like he's been shocked and grabs her almost forcefully by the arm, making her look at him, and takes her face into his hands, her eyes going wide at his reaction.

"No, Alana, listen to me: If he hurt you, if he killed you-" He squeezes his eyes shut, wincing like the mere thought of those words caused him pain."I would have gone out of my fucking mind. For real this time. With no chance of recovery."

By the searing panic that his eyes bore into hers, Alana inexplicably knows it's true.

She comes back four hours later and takes visit, now upped to fifteen minutes, and they are still making their way through the stack of Phyllis Crawford's books. Today it is a collection of poems by E.E. Cummings;

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens; only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.

**iv. Depression**

Most nights Alana goes home wishing for nothing more than her bed and a beer, but she is acquainted with nightmares now and they visit her habitually. The day brings a whole new army of demons- the unbearable, overwhelming guilt gnaws at her until it's almost too much to look at Will, beaten and battered in that hospital room, knowing she inadvertently caused his downfall. Sleep far from serenity and alcohol is the only escape from the all-consuming feeling, but she never broaches the subject to Will again, not wanting to compare her pain and trauma to his. She suffers in utter silence. In her dreams, Hannibal grabs her by the hair and yanks her head back and forces bruised limbs and fingers down her throat. His victims sit across from her at a dinner table and blame her for disgracing them, for forking their unrecognizable remains into her mouth. In the worst ones, Will is dead, or dying, or trapped in places she'll never reach. She wakes up gasping and sweating only to remember that Will is doing this alone in a hospital room, and that the nurses told her he wakes in the middle of the night screaming, not knowing where he is, until they stick a syringe in his arm.

There were monsters in the night and in the day but she wasn't afraid- not of dreams, not of dying, but of heartbreak without healing, of losing him to unworthy animosity and achingly embryonic feelings.

Because outside of her freshly torturing dreams, Will retreats into hidden places she can't follow him into and when he's there he's hostile and bitter and locks all the doors that could grant her entrance, seeping into the floorboards and becoming a brick wall. It's immensely frustrating; all she cando is be there for him but he's shutting her out, and it's with an aching pain she can see it's because he can't stand being so weak and defenseless. His inadvertent verbal abuse is exhausting, but there is a portion more than half of her that thinks - knows - she deserves it. Still she tries, even though the space between them is chilly, yet still bursting with a burning sense of longing and contingency.

They go through the motions; she visits him but the drop-ins are becoming sporadic, and she has to remind herself that she is not actually his girlfriend and therefore has no reason to come all day, everyday as if she were. He has other visitors, anyways; Beverly and Jack and occasionally Price and Zeller and it's only fair she gives them some of the minutes she had wrongfully claimed as her own.

She kisses him, the occasional unfeeling peck, just enough to remind each other that they can have that now, that there should be a whole future awaiting of stolen kisses. He doesn't taste like coffee or firewood like she remembers from his living room, just bland and tasteless, like the sterile rooms have sanitized even the core of his being. They make idle chat, avoiding the heavy subjects and she can tell he's trying (but failing), at not taking his anger out on her. They do all these things, try to close the strange void between them, but he feels so far away. It feels like they're clinging to steam slipping through their hands, it feels like empty effort.

Jack takes the first visit the day the pictures and article come out on , and so she is left waiting another four hours to contemplate what she's going to say, but still feels wholly unprepared when the time comes. Not because she's afraid of his reaction; because she knows it's going to break her heart that she won't be able to make it better, not when his angry red scar is now seared into the minds of the whole country.

In Will's room, she says to him cautiously, "We don't have to talk about it. But if you want to, I'm here."

He replies bluntly, "Talked about it enough with Jack."

"Fine. Then how are you, besides?"

"Just peachy." His violent tone would suggest otherwise. Alana gives him a look and he knows he won't get away with that. He sighs harshly. "I'm tired of being helpless. I'm tired of being disliked, I'm tired of being trapped. First it was Baltimore and now it's a hospital room. "

Alana sighs, frowning. "I know, but you're still recovering. You just need more time, and I swear you'll never have to do this again. I'm sure Jack told you about Lounds; we've got her detained, and increased security, and for now, it's fine-"

"It's not fine. It's humiliating, it's degrading and it's vulgar." Will snaps harshly. "It's not even that. Its not just the flash of Lounds' camera behind my eyes. It's everything. I can feel him pressing in, like- like muscle memory, and I just- I can see killing every one of them, like he's under my skin, remaking his work with my hands, in my dreams. I spent a year staring into the void of my prison walls, reliving his fantasies. I don't want to go back to that headspace again. I can't." A sharp breath escapes him and he says quietly, sadly, "I don't care about any of this anymore. I just want to go home." She sees his face crumple the moment he realizes he doesn't even know what home is anymore.

Before Alana can answer, he's plowing on quickly and determinedly, his erratic speech in startling contrast with the one full of timidity he'd used only moments ago: "I already knew, but Jack told me about the basement. Where he had his meat- do you think he saw us like that? A slab of meat on his cutting board-"

Alana shuts her eyes, swallows. Tries to gather her strength where it's shattered on the tile floor. Tries not to think about how many times she'sdigested the remains of a human corpse-

"I don't know."

"-and thought, 'Fresh meat' and 'I could make a nice roast from their thigh,'-"

"Will."

"Or 'how lovely their lungs and liver and pancreas would look on my dinner plate,' and it was bitter and sweet, like pork, right? That's what it tastes like-"

"Will. Please."

"But I bet he would've gotten a nice laugh from making veal out of Abigail- I was in prison at that point, but you or Jack could've gotten a taste of her-"

"Stop." The single word had come out as a short whimper, but it was just effective as a scream, for Will halts, stares at her sadly. There is a long, weighted beat of silence.

"You think I don't...you think I don't know any of that?" Alana's voice vibrates with anger, with misery; neither of them can tell which.

She can see it so vividly in flashes across her mind: Hannibal smiling smugly at the thought of her revulsion, of Will's trauma and injuries, and she doesn't think she has ever wanted to hurt a human being so badly in her life. She stops for a long few moments, controls her breathing, composes herself, and snaps back into her normal shape. "Yes. All of that, it's, it's more than plausible, and it's revolting but we can't go back and change that now. And I know you can't help it- doing this. You do need to talk about it, at some point, just...not like that. Not right now...but when you're out, we can-"

"Right. Everything's always just for 'awhile' or 'eventually' or 'someday' or 'not right now'..."

Alana gawks at him, something hitting her like a blow to the gut. She knows he's referring to something else by the way his voice snaps and quivers...and everything clicks into place. The reason he thinks she stays. His words flash across her mind again - Why do you stay? Maybe you want to be without me. "Is that what you think?" Inquires Alana loudly, causing Will's head to snap up. "That I'm just waiting it out until you get better? That you'll get out and we'll...that I won't love you anymore?" The word love stings her throat, unsure at it leaves her lips, unable to determine whether or not that term is validated for them just yet.

"When you put it like that..." Will sits up, leans over, tilting his body painfully towards her, something dark and predatory blazing in his eyes. "I don'tneed you to love me."

That stings; so much that Alana winces noticeably, reeling back like he shocked her. It takes everything in her not to give into the petulant salt burning in the back of her eyes, the stabbing pang in her gut, the clenching in her throat. Her whole body, her head, is beyond aching; it feels like suffocating on fire. "I know that." She tries to look at him, but he's staring at the thread in his sheet, curling into himself again and closing up. "Maybe...it was too much to hope that you'd want me to."

He's the one grimacing now. "I just...don't want you to fool yourself into thinking this-" He gestures down at the length of his body sprawled on the hospital sheets, tubes in arms and all, "-is what you want."

Alana's shaking with rage, no idea to whom or what she wants to direct her anger towards, and her eyes burn with angry and unshed tears. "Don't try to tell me what I want, Will. That's for me to decide. And maybe you don't need me," She says, teeth gritted, "But you need someone. You can't expect to this all on your own again. I won't let you."

"Are you planning on being my everyone?" Will scoffs.

"No. I'm planning on being here for you because I care about you. Because that's what I want."

All Will does is stare at the hem of his sheets, slumped and dazed like a zombie. Usually it's easy enough for Alana to find words; she can fit the rationalization of her thoughts into coherent sentences, transfer everything clearly and neatly. These days, it's hard to find words at all. It has become so hard to make him understand. And by the looks of it, Will is having the same problem. When he manages it, the speech is choked, forced out in winces, words in quiet mutters and quick, inelegant phrases. "It wasn't too much to hope. Because that is what I want. I want you, I don't want you to stop coming, or to stop seeing you...I want to see you everyday, every hour, now...and when I'm out. If you're willing. I want all of that, and it was wrong of me to act like I didn't. "

Alana merely shakes her head, but she can't stop her shoulders from slumping over in a breath of relief. "Of course it wasn't wrong of you. Youdeserve to be angry. You have every right to act the way you are."

"You don't deserve to be my punching bag."

"If that's what I have to trade for you to be here, to be alive and free...then I'll take the beating any day." Will winces, opening his mouth to protest, but right then a nurse comes in to shoo Alana away. Alana turns to go, muttering something about damn nurses under her breath when she's out of earshot.

"Alana..." Will calls after her, and his voice is bractically bursting with apologies, with pain, hope, neediness and longing, and it's enough for her to turn around and see that he's staring straight at her, not flinching away. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

* * *

"I have something for you."

Alana smiles that signature warm smile of hers, the one full of infinite reassurance and tenderness, and she's sauntering gracefully towards the bed, holding something behind her back.

"Yeah? What is it?."

Alana doesn't answer, just sits on the edge of the bed and thrusts something thin and papery in his hand. He feels it before he sees it- a photograph.

It's of his dogs, and Alana. She's standing in her sprawling backyard, radiant golden sunlight threading gossamer beads through her hair and the dogs' fur. She stands in the middle of the picture, framed by vibrant green leaves and overgrown grass, holding one of the smaller ones up in her hands while it's licking her face, and she is laughing delightedly. The other dogs are cluttered all around her ankles, Winston at the front, in a protective stance as if he were guarding her. It's one of those caught-in-the-moment photos, the ones impossible to recreate, the ones that are too precious to frame, meant for putting away in a secret place to bring out when the need for a slice of the happiness captured in the frame is staggering.

Alana eyes him as he takes it in; the dazzling sunlight, his dogs, her. It's a combination of all these things, of Alana looking so happy, of the dogs he loves, the aching reminder of how much he's missed the outdoors that causes his eyes to shimmer, inexplicably tearful. His grin is lopsided and almost idiotic, his eyes full of light. Alana can't help but smile, too, and she leans next to him, back against the wall above the bed and legs still thrown off at an awkward angle, peering over his shoulder at the photo.

"Who took it?" He asks, sniffing, stifling the wetness in his eyes.

"Beverly."

He raises his eyebrows. "Beverly...Katz?"

"Yeah. Things have been hectic lately, and she knew about the dogs, offered to help out with them. While I've been here."

"You don't need to come so often." Will frowns, apologetic.

"I want to," She reminds him sternly, "She offered, anyways." Alana laces her hand instinctually around the nape of his neck, absently threading her fingers through his tumbling curls in consoling strokes.

"She also offer to take the picture?" asks Will, allowing himself to lean into her hand.

"On my request. I thought it would be nice for you to see the dogs, if not in person then this was the next best thing. But then she shoved me in the frame at the last second."

"You look good with them," He says, and her throat swells at the notes of earnestly in his voice. "I miss them."

Alana ghosts her lips against his temple as she says, "They miss you."

He grins and looks over at her. "I have to admit, though; I'm kind of jealous," his smirk has turned mischievous, "That they got to cozy up with you for a year while I was on a prison bunk."

"Well, we have plenty of time to make up for it," she says, abruptly overwhelmed by the truth of her own words, "but...do you think a hospital bed could suffice for now?"

She gestures at the length of it and can practically feel his stomach constricting as he takes her proposition in.

"I think we can make do." He didn't mean to whisper, but his voice has turned into merely a fading breath.

And so he maneuvers to make room for Alana's slight frame, and she throws her legs up on the bed and curls against him, careful that the movements don't cause him too much pain. Will threads his fingers through hers and she buries her face in his shoulder, and her body melds to his so comfortably and easily, and it's only the seizing in her stomach that reminds her this is only the first time they've been so close in more than a year - ever. They stay like that until the nurse comes in and makes Alana leave.

* * *

One day, Alana receives a letter.

Her heart practically leaps out of her chest when she recognizes the elegant script, her stomach dropping to her shoes. On instinct the shows it to Jack, who snatches it from her and has Beverly and Price and Zeller examine it with a fine-toothed comb; eventually, coming to the conclusion that it is nothing but harmless ink and paper, it is returned to her.

Alana reads it once, and only once. Reminding herself to ask Jack what happens to the letters Will inevitably gets, she burns it in her fireplace and washes her hands until they're numb and raw. Just for good measure.

**v. Acceptance**

Alana, subconsciously, had regarded this strange process of healing, or bandaging, to say the least, as something like grief. Although she had no idea what she was grieving. Grieving was meant for death, for loves and lives lost. This was just the opposite.

Because Hannibal was locked away. Will was alive and free and they were together, and that was more than enough.

She waits for him by the glass doors of the front entrance. Alana can practically feel the anticipation vibrating off Will's skin, transfusing an erratic jolt of adrenaline through her own veins. She feels ridiculously, wonderfully giddy. Will grins at her.

"I can pull the car around back," she whispers.

"Going to have to face them at some point," Will replies with diction of equal placidity, as if they were sharing a secret. "Might as well get it over with."

Alana nods. Holds out her hand, and he slides his fingers through hers, body still reacting to the unfamiliar human contact like a blissful electric shock.

There was the lights of the cameras flashing relentlessly outside, glaring off the glass windows. There was the trial and the letters, the ceaseless and gruesome acclamations and insinuations of the press and the was Alana's guilt and Will's trauma and everything still so unsaid; there was all the misery and rage and regret compacted in the fragility of their bones. There was the world, as well as their own wretched mental states, waiting to destroy them.

But there was also her hand in his, skin to skin; like a sacred promise, a silent prayer and he is her religious calling and they both know they could spend forever worshipping this virtuous touch. Besides, she never what faith truly was until she felt it in him.

And so, in light of that vow, hands still clasped in each other's and hanging on for dear life, they emerge into the harsh and blinding flashes of the cameras together.


End file.
